


and so we beat on

by stellaviatorii



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Doctor Who 50th Anniversary, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Smut, Non-Linear Narrative, References to Eleventh Doctor/Rory Williams, References to Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, September 11 Attacks, selfcest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 05:15:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3638112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellaviatorii/pseuds/stellaviatorii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You and him – it’s supposed to be all taking and no giving, like a dirty adolescent secret.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>because really, when you keep meeting a future incarnation of yourself, all that's left is greed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and so we beat on

**Author's Note:**

> so this was written way back in december 2013 after seeing the 50th anniversary special, but I completely forgot it existed on my laptop until now. @myself how could u fuck up this badly

I.

He’s all tweed and fez and the sharp scent of Venice when you meet for the thirty-second time.

You lean back on your chair, waiting for the time vortex to blow the cobwebs from his memory and for his face to light up like a Christmas tree, all ‘where’s this for you’ (Donna’s out with a friend of hers who’s six feet under by two-thousand-and-nine) and ‘your place or mine’ (either; you’re not picky). Therein pass fifteen seconds of gaping mouths and stammered words; no recognition.

Placing your Earl Grey – his favourite, a dash of sugar and milk – on the table, you smile blithely. “Your first time?”

“This has happened before?” he replies. He hesitantly eases into the opposing chair, mouth set in a thin line of distrust. You push the tea towards him. His reach for it stutters like a blushing virgin.

“Mhm. Don’t worry about space-time, it’s alright,” he takes a miniscule sip, the tassel on his fez grazing his lack of eyebrow. Laughter tingles at your chest, but he’s a scared, vulnerable deer: any sudden noises and he’ll run screeching to his TARDIS. “Time vortex makes us forget every time, but remember when we meet again. Brilliant, isn’t it?”

His almost comically large eyes flicker up. It’s curious how they widen, nearly completely open to this world ironically new to them. He must’ve just met Rory, then. Ah, Amy and her boys; you’ve heard this story, a fairy tale spat through wet, glistening cold teeth. How far the mighty fall as he asks, “How much do you know?”

“No much,” you lie easily, and it should frighten you. The rules, though lax, still brand your hands as you drape your wrists on the table. He takes another sip, quick without savour. Last time you met here he sat utterly still for an hour just cradling the cup, fingers shaking until you pried the stone-cold tea from his rigid grasp. “What do we do now?”

It plays out as a script – this is your cue, your mark, your last take as you murmur, “Anything we want to.”

The lost footage rots in the never-space between the recognition blooming across his expression and the slow motion of your body towards his.

* * *

 

II. 

Seventh for you, ninety-seventh for him: Rose is gone.

Neither of you speak for hours. He sits beside you, hands still fluttery like your first time. He reminds you of a hummingbird; thrumming heartbeats and fleeting movements vibrate through him like nectar. Rose would have chuckled at the sight.

The thought strikes and he hugs you, desperate, steady for the first stretch in a long while despite the golden glow shivering from his pores.

You don’t talk to this dark-eyed man again.

* * *

 

III.

“The name’s Smith, John Smith,” some dandy grins widely at you, kitted out with a mauve waistcoat of all things. You want to roll your eyes and push him out of the way because Rose is missing and you don’t have time to focus on strange men with boring names. However, before you can dart away, he places his large hands on your new, skinny shoulders (are they really that thin? You’ll ask Rose later) and catches your distant stare.

“First time, hey?” he breathes, cocky. The eye-roll desire has upgraded to shaking the arsehole. Your fingers itch to rock some sense into this waifish lad when suddenly his lips are on yours, kissing ravenously. Notwithstanding yourself, you kiss back.

And then he’s gone, a wisp of a fellow faded into the stark whites of the New Earth hospital. His lilt echoes in your ears for hours.

* * *

 

IV.

Friction, you need friction, shit, oh _god_ how is he doing that, more, _fuck_ , yes, yes, oh my god, _please_ , yes –

You don’t scream but he does, tumbling down from above you like some avenging archangel captured in Michelangelo’s brushstrokes. By all rationality, your breath shouldn’t be hooked, staring unabashedly at his flushed chest and bruised lips – but it is and you can’t stop.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he mumbles into the pillow. You prop yourself up beside him, fingertips tracing long-forsaken spherical names along the sloping galaxy of his spine. His shoulders shudder at some, robbing more of meaningless time to continue with, “This was supposed to happen.”

You hum softly; you don’t want to consider the possibility of time keening beyond your (his) door. Instead you lean down and press a reverend eulogy on the warm small of his back. This is one of the last times you, constructed of pinstripes and onrushing tempests, kiss him, a paper maché man childishly defending his jaunty bowtie.

* * *

 

V.

Martha crosses her arms. “So, what, you’re the Doctor too?”

He grins widely and looks quietly wistful at her, the answer missing from his warble of, “Oh, Martha Jones, I have missed you!”

Quick as a python he leaps towards her, gripping tightly as he mumbles half-formed compliments and apologies into her ear. She doesn’t respond, but opts for staring in wild confusion over at you, hands gently patting this enthusiastic man-child on the back. You say nothing either; it must’ve been a bad day for him.

Later, while Martha chats idly with him, you chance upon a discarded book resting on his console. The TARDIS wants you to know about Melody Malone. She wails for her Doctor.

You turn away from her feral warnings. You’ll find out in your own time.

~~New York sounds nice around his time of year.~~

* * *

 

VI.

You ask him somewhere around the fiftieth how many companions he’s slept with. It takes only minor wheedling and threats about not seeing your cock for another thirty meetings for him to recant. You don’t even try clutching these escapades in your memory, although the curve of his tongue and the expressive gestures he uses to paint every lick and thrust ache like a phantom limb for years afterward.

* * *

 

VII.

For his second time you rent a shitty little hotel room in Cardiff. Jack’s gone, as is the rest of Torchwood; a hundred or so years ago they breathed similar air and pounded their feet against similar concrete and lived vastly different lives to those of you and him.

The sheets smell of sweat and the heady memory of sex. Neither of you care. Between being straddled and his hand fisted in your hair, he gasps, “Rory. Oh god, _Rory_. Rory left. Rory’s—”

“I’m not Rory,” you grit out, close. He shakes and you don’t know if it’s entirely from pleasure.

* * *

 

VIII.

The TARDIS hates this date. She shrieks when she lands, a thousand cataclysmic records and voices twining around her shaking core – angry, spiteful, scared. You’re rooted here for an entire twenty-four hours, feet frozen against the concrete as people begin to scream.

You’ve seen this before, obviously, in footage and memoirs and your own younger eyes. It still makes flinch when the first plane collides with the World Trade Centre and the city unfolds around you, a fragile clockwork heart shattering. The shards rise like the dust cloud, infiltrating the fabric of this tiny, near insignificant (in comparison to the wider universe) community.

As the South tower collapses a hand snakes its way around yours: the last hurrah. “Run.”

Your head pounds from the wail of sirens and the choking fear of scrabbling New Yorkers and the soft, prying touch that floods you with memory. Of course he’s here. He chances a glance back at you, gaze heavily weighted, and in an instant he knows why he’s dragging your cold body through the pulsating crowd. “You came,” you mumble through numb lips. He turns away.

“’Course I did,” he calls back. The mass of victims sways around them, blood burning hot in the morning sun. “Martha—”

“Martha left,” you reply shortly, your hand gripping his harder. Finally you trip to rest in an abandoned café; a lukewarm cup of tea trickles, ink-stain loud, over the canvas of someone’s neglected newspaper. The Presidents’ face blurs, a mixture of grey and black and misguided promises. You’ve seen this before, obviously, in spoken words and the future’s lies and his (your) older eyes.

He sits slowly, a thousand years of running starting to catch up. “Why did you come here?” he asks gently, staring at his hands. You slip off your jacket and fall beside him, laid bare.

“It was an accident. Meant to go—”

“—to 2012, I know,” he huffs, callously cynical. You wonder, distantly, what happened to diminish the hopeful cadence in his words this time. He amends, no less harsh, “Why did you come to Ground Zero?”

Another person shouts outside their pocket of terse calm. “You know why. You’ve been here before.”

“I don’t remember it as well as you do,” he says evenly.

You lean back on your dirty chair with the undeniable desire to laugh. Oh, he’s fallen far – this worn, ridiculous man can’t recall why he’d want to help someone. The irony slaps you in the face. “Go back to Clara,” you retort, “just get out of here.”

He opens his mouth, expression more turbulent than the fires raging beyond. The air is static: this is a modern fall of Troy, a Pearl Harbour about to declare war, an immensely powerful man sitting among children as he receives notice that his nation is crumbling. You and he crouch in the rubble of fragmented civilisation, this fixed point murmuring enticingly against your necks. He can escape – his TARDIS can scuttle from this. You lean over and do not kiss him – you couldn’t call the fleeting press of mouths anything beyond a push. His eyes stay open, pleading without direction, and you’ve seen this before, obviously, in his fervent touches and muttered admissions and the throb of his fleeing feet through the masonry of time.

* * *

 

VIII.V.

Clara talks lowly with the Doctor you’ve locked away, their conversation lulling and comforting like a cup of Earl Grey. He stares at the painting without seeing; this is a fantasy you dared not fashion, the light fading from billions of children’s eyes a far more pennant dream. You should say goodbye.

“Did you ever have sex with Rory?”

He should remember by now. “Ah. So that happened recently for you, then.” He does.

“Yup. Did you?” A careful gaze eyes you in his peripheral.

“Spoilers.”

 

* * *

 

IX.

“What happened?”

“You know I can’t tell you.”

“Shut it. Talk to me.”

“Bit of a contradiction there.”

“Oh, stop it. Just answer me, you twat.”

“You just insulted yourself.”

“And you’re trying to distract yourself. It isn’t working.”

“Smartarse.”

“Oh come _on_ , what’s wrong?”

“You'll understand when you're older.”

* * *

 

X.

The Tokyo skyline shines brighter than it has ever done so before; the New Year is always greeted with explosive grins and teeth flashing under impetuous strobe lights. Pyrotechnics at their finest, a girl beside you says lustrously, her limbs humming with the high of anonymity. The occupation is 2047 – no one cares about you here.

Well, maybe he does.

You’re nursing a potent cocktail by the bar, though he knows you’re far from any semblance of drunk. Despite the lack of intoxication it feels good: it’s something rather than nothing. You could get into a fight tonight; pain shrieking through your knuckles might sit better than the keening loneliness moaning somewhere behind your hearts. Yeah, actually, a brawl sounds pretty appeasing. Your bones begin to sing with anticipation when he slides in beside you at the bar and orders, “Don’t.”

To your defense, you only wince minutely as the memories creep back into the secluded corners of your mind. “Haven’t punched anyone in a while,” you mutter. His hand comes to rest on yours, cold to touch. “I’ll find someone who deserves it. I don’t want to, but—”

“You want to feel something,” he interjects as the countdown starts. Fifty-nine seconds until a moment you could witness a thousand times over. The uniqueness of once-in-a-lifetime affairs is lost on you and your little blue box. “I know.”

“What don’t you know?” It’s supposed to be bitter but the question comes out achingly curious. He catches your eye, empathetically suffocating. This isn’t how you’re meant to be. You and him – it’s supposed to be all taking and no giving, like a dirty adolescent secret. But here he is, still proud enough to care. Everyone’s gone but yourself and his placid hand strikes you as pathetic.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he concedes. You want to look at the countdown and feel a tendril of the excitement the people pulsating around you feel, yet thirty-three seconds seduces you without success. His eyes are vacant under the din, frozen in a suspended moment of understanding. “But I don’t know what to do.”

You can barely hear his quiet whisper through the furious dubstep. He flickers his stare, confidence splattering under the piquant aroma of sweat and isolation. If he remembers this, then his acting must be brilliant; you seep closer, a sour vodka stain on reality’s favourite rug, and pull his stunned face towards yours.

The countdown descends into incoherent rancour as you breathe in broken sympathy from a madman. His tongue stumbles across yours, softly cutting through your volatile walls of self-imposed seclusion. You could die like this and never become him, at peace without tumbling down the rabbit hole of his clumsy violence. This is all you want – you need him time to just _stop_ , can he please let you have this one moment, can he give you his humid gasp and terrified embrace –

He lets you drift, poised on the brink of absolute chaos, tugging on your lower lip with trembling incisors. You groan, unheard, and the universe bursts in prodigious gilded light – your own fireworks. His kiss is a private high; the hard press of his mouth unties the defensive cage around your chest so that your hearts beat double-time, throbbing giddy in your own sense of liberty.

“Go,” he mumbles, still flush against your vibrating form. He clutches your coat, fingers buried in the graveyard of the fabric, and insists again. Your skin crawls and shudders and radiates gold, brighter than the display outside and

_oh._

* * *

 

XI. 

You don’t want to go.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://www.punkxmen.tumblr.com)


End file.
